D-Day anniversary: UT Vols who were more than sports heroes; they also served

This morning we awake to a day – June 6 – when sports will be watched and discussed and tweeted. The Braves, the Cubs, LeBron, and, yes, even still on the cusp of summer, college football.

Rudy Klarer’s number, 49, was worn decades later by Kelly Ziegler, but was retired after the 1988 Peach Bowl. Klarer died in Europe in the first week of 1945.

But this is a date I always rise to remember the events that took place on the beaches of France, what is now 74 years ago.

June 6 is D-Day, the day in 1944 the Allied forces finally crossed the English Channel to invade Nazi-occupied France. World War II would rage for another 15 months, but this was a turning point.

Let’s pause on the anniversary of D-Day – a week after Memorial Day – to ponder how WWII impacted the sports we loved then and now.

Bill Nowling was killed in Europe on Aug. 9, 1944. His number, 42, was not worn by another player after the 1988 Peach Bowl and now hangs in Neyland Stadium.

The retired numbers of four Tennessee football players killed in the war hang in Neyland Stadium. I don’t know whether Bill Nowling, Rudy Klarer, Willis Tucker or Clyde “Ig” Fuson participated in the D-Day invasion, but they were all alive on June 6 and would die in Europe in the coming months.

Nowling was killed Aug. 9, 1944. Tucker died in November, Fuson in December. Klarer was killed the first week of 1945.

Willis Tucker died in Europe in November 1944. His jersey number, 61, was retired by Tennessee.

The man who coached them before the war, Robert Neyland, was on the other side of the globe, playing a key role in the fight against Japan.

Neyland had served in World War I and other operations before arriving at UT in 1925 to put the Vols on the map. The Army called in 1935 but he returned after a year. His 1938-39-40 teams went 32-2 before he was summoned to duty in May 1941.

Clyde "Ig" Fuson was a fullback for Tennessee in 1942. He was killed in Europe in December 1944.

John Barnhill saw the Vols through the war years until Neyland returned, a retired general, in 1946.

As D-Day dawned, the U.S. had been at war for 2½ years. By the 1943 football season, able-bodied young men had become scarce stateside.

Tennessee didn’t field a team in 1943. Only five of 12 SEC schools did. The Vols also skipped the 1943-44 basketball season and shut down baseball from 1943-46. Football returned in 1944. Nearly four months after D-Day, the Vols beat Kentucky 26-13 to open what would be a 7-1-1 season.

A young coach named Paul Bryant accepted the head position at Arkansas in late 1941, but Pearl Harbor was bombed before he coached a game. Bryant, in the Navy, survived the accidental sinking of his ship. If he hadn’t, how different the history of SEC football might be.

The 1943 NFL season saw the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers merge to be the “Steagles,” because of the lack of players.

Baseball played on, despite absent stars. Future Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams left for the war, as did legions of others. Before he would break baseball’s color barrier in 1947, Jackie Robinson served on a segregated tank crew.

Come June 6, 1944, an Auburn alum was among the thousands wading ashore under fire in Normandy. Ralph “Shug” Jordan was wounded at Utah Beach, but survived to become the Tigers’ all-time winning coach and stadium namesake.

A young Navy gunner named Yogi Berra helped soften up the German defenses. (Actor Henry Fonda participated in D-Day as a Navy lieutenant then starred in the 1962 movie about it, “The Longest Day.’’)

Like their coach, several Vols survived the war and returned to interrupted careers at Shields-Watkins Field. Dick Huffman was known as a tough customer in 1942. Imagine what he’d been through by 1946.

To those who took part on that momentous June 6 in France, and to those who served on any day around the globe, a mighty thank you.